


Faithful to this Moment

by the_rck



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol, Catching a Whale, Established Relationship, First Kiss, Fishing for Minnows, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25493968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: He signaled the bartender. When the woman arrived, Stephen said, "Absinthe, undiluted, for the charismatic gentleman over there." He twitched a finger to indicate Loki and the half dozen beings vying for his attention.The bartender gave Stephen a sharp look. "He won't drink it."Stephen smiled. "But he will recognize it."Queen Frigga brewed absinthe. She served it to the entire court once a year.
Relationships: Loki/Stephen Strange
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43
Collections: Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	Faithful to this Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days4daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/gifts).



> Title from Suji Kwock Kim's poem, "Fugue."

Stephen knew very well what he ought to do with the man he was watching. He'd traveled, time stream to time stream, looking for Loki and cataloguing the damage.

Loki's interferences weren't always large, but they tended to cause waves-- tsunamis sometimes-- instead of ripples. The showiest things Loki did usually had the least impact; Loki's forte was the whispered suggestion, the open-ended, dangling sentence, the shared look implying that he supported someone's least reasonable course of action.

Loki nudged people and events then stood back to see what happened. Most of the time streams had been extremely resistant to Stephen's efforts at erasing or even mitigating the changes.

Stephen supposed that that-- both parts-- was why the mythic Loki was considered a trickster. Now that the two of them were sitting in the same bar, Stephen wondered what the universe would do if he used his magic to force Loki back to the time and place he'd escaped from.

Risks like that were part of Stephen's office, though, and there was currently a Loki shaped hole in the causality loop that bound Thanos. Stephen really _ought_ to grab Loki and stuff him back into the instant he'd escaped from.

Instead he signaled the bartender. When the woman arrived, Stephen said, "Absinthe, undiluted, for the charismatic gentleman over there." He twitched a finger to indicate Loki and the half dozen beings vying for his attention.

The bartender gave Stephen a sharp look. "He won't drink it."

Stephen smiled. "But he will recognize it."

Queen Frigga brewed absinthe. She served it to the entire court once a year.

This Loki wouldn't know yet that that was the anniversary of the day that Odin sealed Hela. He also wouldn't know that Frigga and her grief for Hela had protected-- would someday protect-- Loki from a similar fate. Frigga had left Hela alone with Odin; she had never given her husband the same opportunity with Loki.

Loki might or might not realize that the date in this timeline's Asgard lined up, but absinthe would remind him of home.

The bartender shrugged, accepted Stephen's cash, and went to fill the glass.

Five minutes later, Loki was watching Stephen the way that a kitten watches a dangling string.

Stephen nodded in acknowledgment, Sorcerer Supreme of Earth to Loki, Prince of Asgard, one singular being to another.

Loki wouldn't be half so troublesome if there were other Lokis to be found in the multiverse. Stephen would have felt bad about using one of them, but he'd probably have done it as a stopgap.

The Loki involved probably wouldn't even have realized that he'd been moved to a different universe, and the differences between one timeline and another might have explained Loki's later erratic behavior.

Stephen supposed he should thank every power in existence that Loki had never been considered as a candidate for Sorcerer Supreme. At various times in the past, the Powers had accepted much less trustworthy beings for the position.

Stephen frowned as he considered the possibility that Loki might become his heir. That... He wished he hadn't thought of it.

He had no idea who had acted as Sorcerer Supreme during the years while he was dust. It couldn't have been Loki. Loki was too untrustworthy and had been thoroughly dead at the time.

Loki was still watching him. When their eyes met again, Loki stood, glass in hand, and stalked over to Stephen's table.

Stephen looked up at Loki and nodded at the glass. "I thought you might miss it."

Loki's expression sharpened. "You know," he said. "No one else ever knows." He raised the glass as if making a toast. "To the dead."

Stephen raised his own glass. "To the Allfather who's minutely less terrible than the rest."

They both drank at the same instant.

Loki tipped his glass enough to get the last drop. He set the glass on Stephen's table, pulled out a chair, and turned it backwards before sitting down. "You have my attention."

Stephen shrugged with the shoulder closer to Loki. "I've been looking for you for a while. Causality issues. You ejected yourself from our dimension years before you had actually done all of the things that can't happen without you." He hadn't meant to be so blunt, but he'd also had plenty of time to think about the intersections of Loki and lies.

He'd just have to be extremely careful not to let Loki notice the detours in the conversation. 'Your mother died' and 'You died' were never going to persuade Loki to cooperate.

"I regret your losses," Loki said in a tone that said that he absolutely didn't. "But I fail to see why I should care." He leaned toward Stephen. "I've looked, you know. I wanted to see what happened with that son of a bitch, Thanos."

That changed things.

Stephen sighed. He really didn't want to go toe to toe with a trickster.

"Do you know why, once a year, my mother forces the Allfather to drink wormwood and smile for the grace of it?" 

Something in Loki's posture told Stephen that he already knew, so Stephen nodded. "For her first born, worse than dead."

Loki touched the tabletop with the tip of his left index finger and started tracing patterns. "I found Hela's prison. Over and over and over. I let her out a time or three, too, in different worlds; we're just earlier than any of that happened here. Objectively, without the time travel bullshit." He looked directly at Stephen. "If he hadn't ruined her before, the long isolation was more than enough to--" He shook his head and signalled the bartender. 

Loki ordered absinthe for both of them without bothering to ask Stephen's opinion. Once it arrived, he raised his glass and sipped it. "There isn't anyone to force me to smile as I taste wormwood," he said, "but I shouldn't forget, either." For a moment he looked ancient, older and slyer than any eldritch being Stephen had ever encountered.

Stephen hadn't considered the possibility that Loki might be older and more powerful here and now than he'd been while searching for the Allfather on Earth. He didn't like the probable outcomes here. He also didn't care for absinthe at all, but he took a sip, his movements echoing Loki's. "Does remembering make a difference?"

"Not to them." Loki set down his glass and waved at the other occupants of the bar. "I do what I do because I am what I am. They'll be squashed without malice or exalted without intention." He stood. "I think we shouldn't discuss it here. You'll find it... limiting."

Stephen hesitated for several seconds. He took another sip of absinthe. Then he set down the glass and followed Loki out of the bar.

Stephen decided not to question how the door out of the bar suddenly opened onto an empty parapet. He knew that, if he looked back, the door wouldn't be there at all any more. "I caught you at the wrong time, didn't I?"

"You need much younger me," Loki admitted, "and you'll have to sweeten the deal a lot because Thanos tried to turn me into Hela. I won't have found all of the pieces of myself yet." He turned back to Stephen. "I miss you between our meetings." He reached a hand toward Stephen that stopped inches from Stephen's face. "Don't buy me absinthe again. The me you're looking for will gut you for it." He smiled.

Stephen took one step closer. "I found you-- younger you? Where? When?"

Loki pressed a finger against Stephen's lips. "Somewhere. Eventually. Specifics will cost." He dropped his hand and leaned in. He brushed his lips across Stephen's.

Stephen took that as an indication of the price Loki was asking. Then he considered. "Hela's not the only one for whom you drink absinthe." The sentence came out less certain than he intended it to.

"For more lost than just the two of you," Loki said. He sounded as if loss was an accustomed weight.

Stephen could still taste the bitterness in the back of his throat. "But sweetness, too?"

"Sometimes." Loki looked up at the night sky. "Who knows? We might, one or both, make different choices and never meet here at all. Time repairs herself. Even the scars vanish after a while."

Stephen wondered how old and how powerful this Loki was. He supposed that it didn't matter given that the answer was so obviously 'more than me.'

"And now you're wondering if I'm bluffing." Loki didn't look back at Stephen. "Worth considering because I would. I have."

"Was that... Was that our first kiss?"

Loki laughed. "Not on my side. Not unless you change that." He seemed to consider that. "I don't recommend changing that. Not that."

"It was pretty puny for a real first kiss." Stephen had no idea why he was trying to bait Loki. He didn't need anything from this Loki, not really, and certainly nothing worth what this being might do if provoked.

Loki turned back and tilted his head to the left. His smile showed decidedly non-human teeth. "I can do better," he promised. "Give me long enough, and I'll teach you all of the things you taught me. It won't all be kind, but you weren't either."

If Stephen hesitated, it was only for a fraction of a second. He raised his chin. "Bring it," he said.

Loki nodded sharply, and then they were kissing again, open mouthed and messy. When they stopped, some time later, Loki said, "Change things, Stephen. Change them just a little. Consider me-- this me-- when you make those decisions."

The grief in Loki's voice hurt, and Stephen knew that those sentences referred to whatever led to remembering him with absinthe. "I am what I am," he said. This time, he was the one to press a finger against Loki's lips. "You're better at subtle than that."

Loki shook his head. "Not tonight," he said. "Not at your beginning."

Stephen heard an unspoken but urgent echo referencing endings. He didn't want to know whose, so he pretended he hadn't noticed. Instead, he offered Loki his hand. "Lead on."

Loki surely knew that there was only so far that Stephen Strange would follow.


End file.
